Wednesday, May 27, 2015

The growth is slowing with about 40% of the world with full internet access at home. Nearly 3/4 of us have access from mobile phones, but only about 3 billion of that 5.2 billion number have smartphones. That's just a bit more than the 2.8 billion users who have full internet access.

and the US Dollar leads the web

11 of the 15 biggest internet companies are American. The other 4 are from China.

and Messaging Platforms are the Killer App.

Government, Healthcare, And Education Are Huge Opportunities

"The Internet has already transformed the consumer and business space, where entrepreneurs can build products that meet their needs or solve pain points. Larger, more regulated spaces that are less accessible or comprehensible to the average entrepreneur have seen less Internet-driven innovation, and are essentially sitting ducks for startups." - Tech Crunch Summary

A word of caution, you are responsible for securing your data

Lost devices, insider breaches, spyware all contribute to security breaches.

Still the workplace moves forward online, and becomes global

Service jobs are replacing goods producing jobs, with cognitive jobs growing the fastest. More people than ever work remotely with flexible hours. Consumers expect instant response, so businesses are open 24 hours. Which reminds me, I've got work to do. It's 9 AM somewhere!

Monday, May 19, 2014

The Fog is an extension of the Cloud. So in Fog Computing, data is stored closer to the devices we use to access the internet. The benefit is a reduction of bandwidth and latency.

CISCO routers already live in this grey area between out devices and big data providers. CISCO is adding Linux operating systems to some of their routers, and manage frequently accessed data with a distributed network of these router on the edge of the cloud.

It's a favorite exhibit of those who have read the paper. Many had never heard of terms larger than a petabyte. In the article, I mention that the term yottabyte is used in "speculation". But is that speculation about to enter the realm of reality? The recent article about Twitter adding security to impede surveillance mentions that the National Security Agency's datacenter in Bluffdale, Utah is "possibly cabable" of storing a yottabyte. We're still in speculation mode but for how long? Will 2014 be the year of the Yottabyte?

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

This 1998 SiliconGraphics ad from Black Enterprise magazine offers solutions for a "Big Data" world. 256GB of system memory on a server and 400 Terabytes of storage. Not bad for the 20th century. Or for this century.

Weiss goes on to say "While big data have the potential for better results, there is no guarantee that they are more predictive than small data" With all the hype around Big Data, it helps to get back to the origins of the term and realize that it's one of may interesting problems that experts in a variety of disciplines have been wrestling with for a long time.